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In this procession I recognized the sacred office of the Brothers of the Misericordia, one of the earliest institutions of priestly charity ; and perhaps the only national trait of ancient Florence which now remains. The principles of this order are founded on the basis of universal benevolence. A pure and primitive simplicity marks every feature and act of this fraternity, who, in silence and in solitude, fulfill their sacred and unostentatious offices.

The gloom with which their solemn duties invest them, receives new and mournful impressions, from the tradition which connects its origin with the history of the great plague in 1348, celebrated by Boccaccio in his Decameron. They relate that many portentous omens predicted this awful visitation. A dead crow foil from the air, and three boys, at whose feet it had dropped, tossed it towards each other in play. These three boys died, and soon after the plague broke out, and in its fearful ravages desolated the city. During its continuance, a few individals, firm in purpose and strong in piety , self-devoted , attended on the sick and dying, and the survivors of these chosen few, afterwards taking the monastic habits and order of Brothers of the Misericordia, assumed for life the performance of those services, which in the hour of anguish and sorrow they had voluntarily fulfilled.

Their small church is situated close to the Duomo, the House of God; but all is sad and solemn in the aspect of this institution. It was built shortly after the plague, and was raised on the margin of the gulph dug to receive the dead. A black dress, in which the brethren are attired from head to foot, entirely covers the person and conceals the face. The brother, whether of noble or of lowly birth , is equally undistinguished and unknown, and their duties are performed, and charities dispensed, to the noble or the beggar, with the same indiscriminating ceremonies.

A few tapers on the altar, and at the shrine of the Virgin , burn night and day , throwing a dim and feeble light around. Six of the brethren watch continually; and medical aid is always in readiness. Divine worship is performed by them in the morning and in the evening, assisted by those individuals whom piety or sorrow may have brought to mingle among them. On the floor are arranged biers, palls, torches, and dresses. The sick are taken to the hospitals, the dead are conveyed to their last home, and the unclaimed brought to their church on a bier, covered by a pall.

They are summoned to their duties by the solemn tolling of their deep-toned bell, which, when heard in the dead and silent hour of the night, falls on the ear with dismal and appalling sound.

Another office of the Brethren of the Misericordia is to visit the prisons, and prepare the condemned for death. Once a-year, on Good-Friday, this duty is publicly performed. Twelve brethren of the order, and twelve penitents, form the procession, bearing the head of St John on a car, and the image of a dead Christ, covered with black crape. The procession is preceded by solemn music, and closed by a long train of priests clothed in black.

In this institution the numbers are unlimited forming a wide extended circle, which may embrace members from every city, acknowledging the same faith, bound by one uniting, but secret and mysterious tye.

Seventy two of the brethren (says Padre Richa) were selected as directors of the Institution, chosen from different classes. Namely to Prelates, twenty unbeneficed clergymen, four gentlemen, and 28 artificers; from whom are taken twelve every fuor months as officiating members, six styled Captains, and six denominated Counsellors. To these were added a hundred and five bretheren called « Giornanti » seven each day being in readiness to attend, either by a summons or at the sound of their great Bell.

They are not of necessity individually known to each other, but can render themselves intelligible by certain signs and words, in any circumstances requiring communication.

Their vow enjoins them to be ready, night or day, at the call of sudden calamity—to attend those overtaken by sickness, accident, or assault. A certain number of them are in rotation employed in asking charity, a service which they are obliged to perform barefooted, and in a silent appeal, the rules strictly forbidding the use of speech, when engaged in any duty.

Their call is never left unanswered , every individual making an offering, were it only of the smallest copper piece, as it is money supposed to be lent to pray for departed souls. This peculiar order, for there are others not greatly dissimilar, possesses a privilege of great magnitude, extended only once in every year, and to one single person.

An individual of their body becoming amenable to the laws of his country, in virtue of this privilege, may claim exemption from the penalty, receiving his life at the prayer of his brethren. This ceremony , when it occurs, is performed with every circumstance of pomp and solemnity.

The order, habited in the dress of the ancient priests, carry branches of palm in token of peace, and, accompanied by all the imposing grandeur of the church, present themselves in front of the palace of the Grand Duke, when the Sovereign Prince condescends to deliver the act of grace. They next proceed to the President of the Tribunal of Supreme Power. This officer, in person, leads the way, conducting them to the prison, into which they enter, and there receiving their liberated brother , they invest him in the dress of their order, and crowning him with laurel, conduct him home in triumph.

No fixed period is enjoined for the fulfilment of the vow taken by this order. Many in the highest sphere have sought expiation of sins, by assuming it for a longer or shorter time, proportioned to the measure of their crime, or to the sensitive state of their consciences. Princes, Cardinals, and even Popes, have been numbered among their penitents, and have joined in their vows and services.

Text from: John Bell, Observations on Italy, Naples, Fibreno for John Rodwell, 1835. To read the 2 Bell’s volumes on Italy: http://books.google.it/books?id=Q6ahxfVpT64C&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Italy in the thirteenth century carried on and brought to its crowning point the work of civilization which France in the twelfth century had started by means of the crusades, the establishment of communal franchises, and the foundation of the University of Paris. The symbol created by the genius of Lucretius, where the successive labor of generations is represented by running-men passing their torches from hand to hand, had never been realized with so much grandeur; the sacred torches had fallen from French hands, and had been picked up by Italy, in whose grasp they emitted a light which dazzled the whole world.

Rome, notwithstanding the Barbarian invasion, the schism, and the exile of the Papacy, still retained the recollection of her glorious past, brought even more vividly before her by the superb monuments which had withstood the ravages of time and of man. But even Rome, like the rest of Italy, acknowledged the superiority of Florence comparable to Athens itself, and all the cities of Italy did homage to her genius, for she, together with Siena, had been the first to make the onward move.

In the course of a century, from Dante and Giotto to the first of the Medici, from the two Pisani to Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Alberti, Florence reached the summit of human thought and the zenith of plastic beauty. While at the very moment when it seemed as if she must exhausted by the efforts which resulted in the birth of the Renaissance, she was about to produce the two human beings, Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo, who in the domain of Art bring most nearly home to us the divine origin of our poor himianity. We must go back to Greek Art and to the age of Pericles for another such epoch in the world’s history; and to form some idea of the revolution which was then brought about, we must revert to the advent of Christianity, which founded modem society upon the ruins of the old world.

It will be my endeavor to trace, as I proceed, the causes, direct and indirect, of this unquestioned superiority of Florence over the other cities of the Peninsula. To the sum of human knowledge which constitutes the trading capital of humanity, Florence contributed the largest share, and she frurther and above all possessed that gift and privilege of plastic beauty, just as some of God’s creatures have the privilege of gracefulness. There was a period in her history when everything that her artists touched turned to gold. Their works were instinct with the profound faith that inspired them, and their consum- mate strength and skill were masked by the gracefulness of their finish. Even to this day the marbles, frescoes, and manuscripts produced during this bril- liant epoch in Florence, or by Florentines, retain a rare and unique individuality, an undefinable some- thing made up of nobility, grandeur, cahn strength, and sober elegance. Our eyes are attracted at a street comer, under a porch, in a gallery, or on the walls of a convent, as the case may be, by some ob- ject which stands out in such relief that the surround- ing objects are, so to speak, obliterated. This is because the soul of Florence has passed into the in- spired work : we recognize the sign by which all the works of the fifteenth century in Italy are marked, as we breathe the soft and subtle perfume which they exhale.

This superiority of florentine Art has been everywhere felt, and all Italy was subject to its peaceful yoke as we are to-day. From Papal Rome, where the illustrious pontiffs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gathered about them the artists of Florence and the humanists of Tuscany, to the condottieri who wore the purple at Milan, Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua, Rimini, and Bologna, all the rulers of Italy sought to assemble a court composed in the main of illustrious Florentines. If they wanted to erect a cathedral or church, to cast an equestrian statue of some famous soldier, to write the history of some great city, or to train the heir to a principality, it was to Florence that they tamed their attention. Florence was the focus, the school, and the laboratory of human genius, and though there were other centres of intelligence — each northern town being in the fifteenth century a miniature Athens — Florence predominated over them all.

There are three distinct periods in the history of Florence. From the second half of the thirteenth to the end of the fourteenth century she was struggling for existence, and torn by the conflicting passions of her own citizens divided by hereditary feuds. She attempted to establish liberty, but only succeeded in paving the way for an Athenian form of tyranny which had genius for its excuse and the majority of the citizens for its accomplices. Yet amid these incessant struggles of Guelphs and Ghibellines, and in spite of continual disturbances, the work of elaboration was ever going on, and has been a cause of astonishment to all the historians of that period.

In France the English invasion and intestine struggles had extinguished civil life, and had put back the progress of humanity ; but in Tuscany the flower of the Renaissance grew and bloomed in blood, unfolding itself in all its beauty at the dawn of the fifteenth century. This was the second and most brilliant of the three periods : that which was adorned by Cosimo, Father of his Country, and by Lorenzo the Magnificent, by savants, such as Marcilio Ficino, Politian, Pico della Mirandola, Cristofero Landino, Baccio Ugolini, Rinuccini, and the two Acciajuoli ; by artists, like Brunelleschi, Michelozzo Michelozzi, Donatello, Leo Battista Alberti ; and by men of political genius, such as Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Machiavelli, and Carlo Marsuppini.

At the time of the siege of Ilorence (1530), the splendor of this period was at its apogee, but with the exception of Galileo, who was destined to discover fresh truths, all the great innovators were in their graves, Michael Angelo upon his bastion, fortifying Florence and defending San Miniato, is symbolic of the genius of Florence struggling for independence and freedom against Charles V. When the city opened her gates the Republic was doomed, and the days of her greatness were numbered with the past.

The sixteenth century was not a barren one. Tumultuous, full of life, and with a tendency to extremes, it was more turbulent than the fifteenth ; and ever eager to learn, it gave birth to a vast number of works, devoid, however, of the ardent faith, the conscientiousness, and the infinite depth which marked the preceding era. John of Bologna, with his martial air, Benvenuto himself, who may be looked upon as a condottiere who had by some accident found his way into the career of Art, and who, for all his fine ways, was an artist to the core, with all the qualities and defects of his age, cannot make us forget the gentle whose works there is always something novel; distinctive, and grandiose.

No one will feel surprised when I say that it is the second period, from the thirteenth century to the fall of the Republic, which has been the subject of my predilection. It seems to have come to be understood within the last twenty years that, with the exception of two or three great figures which are the synthesis of human genius, and which shed their lustre over the early part of the sixteenth century in Italy, humanity disclosed nearly all its secrets from the time of Dante to the death of Michael Angelo and of Leonardo da Vinci.

While if contemporary chroniclers have exhausted all that there is to say concerning the great literary and philosophical characters, the history of Art is only just dawning. Benozzo Gozzoli, Lippi, Memmi, Pollaiolo, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Baccio Baldini, Pisanello, Finiguerra, Benedetto da Maiano, Michelozzo, Desiderio, and their contemporaries have been but little known in modem times, and their works not familiar even in their native places.

The period which begins with the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I, and finishes with John Gaston, was not devoid of glory for Florence. If the individuals are less famous, and if a sovereign like Lorenzo the Magnificent is replaced by one plunged in crime like Cosimo, there was an impetus acquired,  a traditional greatness, a flow of sap wich continued to produce flowers and fruit.

The last prince of this race had a glimmer of intellectual genius; a desire to learn, a spark of sacred fire, and a certain sense of what was due to posterity which induced him to bequeath to his country Art treasures testifying clearly to his magnificence, his judgment, and his taste. Now and again, even daring its decline, may be seen some sudden flicker of the Florentine genius about to be extinguished; and the period of the decadence of Florence with the Academy of the Cimento would pass muster for the Renaissance of some benighted peoples.

The principal monuments of Florence give us an insight into her civil life, for at that period the characters of men were reflected with great distinctness in their works. In this remarkable city, where were born all the great ideas upon which are based the glory, the prosperity, and the experience of modem society, the Palazzo Vecchio —  to take only this one building, of which D’Azeglio has said that it is a magnificent preface to the annals of Florence — fittingly symbolizes, by its ragged exterior and splendid ornamentation within, the dual character of an epoch in which the body was hardy while the mind was refined and eager for knowledge. The history and art of Florence are in her streets ; and to walk about her squares, and to visit her churches and palaces, is equivalent to reading the chronicles of the city from the twelfth to the sixteenth century.

I do not retract what I said on Venice, when I described the Frari, and the San Giovanni and Paolo monuments as the most splendid which had ever been erected to the memory of man, not even excepting those of the Vatican, of St. John Lateran, and of Santa Maria del Popolo: but while those at Florence, erected in the middle of the fifteenth century, are plainer and less pompous, they are more human and more touching, and Leopardi himself, with the istinct of an artist, bent the knee to Desiderio and Donatello.

Michael Angelo is more grandiose and inscrutable stirring the imagination and inspiring a sort of religious terror with those enigmatic figures which seem to be carrying on in the obscurity of the tomb ” the inward dream never to be completed ”; but with all his genius he lacked the infinite candor, the angelic softness, and the exquisite chasteness of these sculptors of the fifteenth century. They remind us of Ghreece, where flowers were scattered over the graves, giving an impress of gentle repose and peace to death, and stripping it of its sinister characteristics. The philosopher and the cardinal whom Rosellino and Desiderio respectively have chiselled upon the marble sarcophagus seem to be sleeping peacefully, and their figures only reflect the calm and the beatitude of the blessed who know eternal truth.

Those who do not know the city may perhaps be tempted to visit her, while those who have been so fortunate as to dwell within her walls will, I venture to hope, be carried back in memory to her, and evolve from the darkness of recollection the living and bright reality.

Florence has a strong claim upon our affections, for she is the mother of all those to whom the intellect is more than the body ; and her streets and palaces are a fruitful source of study and instruction. Rome is grander, and appeals more strongly to the imagination; Venice is more strange, more unique, more picturesque ; but Florence is more indispensable than either of them to humanity. She has given birth to Dante, the divine poet ; to Michael Angelo, the ” man with four souls ” and to Galileo, the blind man who could read in the darkness the secrets of the universe. If Florence disappeared from off the surface of the globe the archives of human thought would lose their most famous documents, and the modem Latin race would go into mourning for its ancestors.

From “Charles Yriarte, Florence, Vol. I,  New York, Merril and Baker, 1897. To read the original and unabridged text: http://www.archive.org/details/florence01yriagoog

La downtown, il centro, di Florence in Arizona

Negli Stati Uniti le “Firenze” (Florence) sono 21:

• Florence, Alabama (36,721 abitanti nel 2005)
• Florence, Arizona (17,053 ab./2005)
• Florence, Colorado (3,653 ab./2000)
• Florence, Illinois (71 ab./2000)
• Florence, Indiana (n.d.)
• Florence, Kansas (671 ab./2000)
• Florence, Kentucky (23,551 ab./2000)
• Florence, Massachusetts (n.d.)
• Florence, Minnesota (61 ab./2000)
• Florence, Mississippi (2,396 ab./2000)
• Florence, Missouri (n.d.)
• Florence, Montana (901 ab./2000)
• Florence, Nebraska (inglobata nella città di Omaha nel 1917)
• Florence, New York (1,086 ab./2000). La cittadina sorge poco più a nord di quella di Roma (Rome).
• Florence, Oregon (7,263 ab./2000)
• Florence, South Carolina (30,248 ab./2000). Con tutta l’ area metropolitana, sempre nell’ ultimo censimento del 2000, gli abitanti erano 67,314.
• Florence, South Dakota (299 ab./2000)
• Florence, Texas (1,109 ab./2005)
• Florence, Vermont (n.d.)
• Florence, Wisconsin (2,319 ab./2000)

L' unico edificio pubblico di Rome nell Iowa

Negli USA le “Roma” (Rome) sono 13 di cui 2 nel solo Wisconsin e altrettante nell’ Indiana:

• Rome, Georgia (34,980 abitanti nel 2000)
• Rome, Illinois (1,776 ab./2000)
• Rome, Indiana (n.d.)
• Rome City, Indiana (1,615 ab./2000)
• Rome, Iowa (113 ab./2000)
• Rome, Maine (980 ab./2000)
• Rome, Maryland (inglobata in Washington D.C.). L’ “antica” Rome del Maryland, che a sud aveva per confine il torrente Tiber (Tevere), venne fondata nel 1663 ma un secolo più tardi dovette essere abbandonata e demolita per far spazio alla nuova capitale federale. Il luogo in cui sorgeva la cittadina di Rome è oggi universalmente noto come “Capitol Hill” (il Campidoglio) in quanto ospita la sede del Congresso (parlamento) statunitense.
• Rome, New York (34,950 ab./2000)
• Rome, Ohio (117 ab./2000)
• Rome, Oregon (n.d.)
• Rome, Pennsylvania (382 ab./2000)
• Rome (Adams County), Wisconsin (2,656 ab./2000)
• Rome (Jefferson County), Wisconsin (574 ab./2000)

Il municipio di Milan in Minnesota

Anche le Milano (Milan) a stelle e strisce sono 13:

• Milan, Georgia (1,012 abitanti nel 2000)
• Milan, Illinois (5,257 ab./2000)
• Milan, Indiana (1,816 ab./2000)
• Milan, Kansas (137 ab./2000)
• Milan, Michigan (4,775 ab./2000)
• Milan, Minnesota (326 ab./2000)
• Milan, Missouri (1,958 ab./2000)
• Milan, New Hampshire (1,331 ab./2000)
• Milan, New Mexico (1,891 ab./2000)
• Milan, New York (4,559 ab./2000)
• Milan, Ohio (1,445 ab./2000). Città natale di Thomas Alva Edison.
• Milan, Tennessee (7,664 ab./2000). I suoi abitanti usano farsi chiamare “Milanites”.
• Milan, Washington (n.d.)

Il centro storico di Naples in Florida

Di “Naples” (Napoli) in America ce ne sono 9 :

• Naples, Florida (21,804 abitanti nel 2006). Tra i residenti celebri della cittadina figura anche il regista Steven Spielberg.
• Naples, Idaho (n.d.)
• Naples, Illinois (134 ab./2000)
• Naples, Maine (3,274 ab./2000)
• Naples, New York (2,441 ab./2000)
• Naples, South Dakota (25 ab./2000)
• Naples, Texas (1,410 ab./2000)
• Naples, Utah (1,300 ab./2000)
• Naples, Wisconsin (584 ab./2000)